Tag Archives: bleaching

Most outdoor enthusiasts pride themselves on being good stewards of the land, sea, and everything that resides there. We are conservationists who want to leave the planet as good or better than we found it for future generations to enjoy. Knowing that, it has come to our attention in the last couple of years that most common sunscreen brands are having a detrimental effect on coral reefs around the world. Coral bleaching is becoming a major issue, and studies have determined that sunscreen is a contributing factor. But we don’t have to risk skin cancer. There is another way. Reef-friendly sunscreens to the rescue…

Badger Sport Sunscreen Cream Unscented
Great for any extreme sports fanatic. Divers, surfers, mountain bikers and hikers will love this sunscreen. Not only is it made with no animal testing and biodegradable, its packaging is just as eco-friendly.

Raw Elements Eco Form Sunscreen
As a performance driven sunscreen, it is very water resistant beyond 80 minutes, yet so gentle and moisturizing it is perfect for our young ones. Packed with biologically active antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and extracts, it continues protecting our skin long after environmental exposure.

Stream2Sea
Protect your body while preserving the ecosystems you love with this high performance mineral-based sunscreen.

AquaSport
A highly effective, safe, natural, oxybenzone-free sunscreen providing full-spectrm UVA (skin cancer) and UVB (sunburn) protection. Proven effective after 80 minutes in water, AquaSport is very water/sweat resistant. Using non-nano, un-coated zinc oxide, it is non-whitening, non-greasy, fragrance-free and won’t cause eye sting. It is great for athletes, active people and kids who might get some in their eyes.

While we in the Pacific Northwest are cleaning up after another blustery, stormy day, we can’t help but wonder just how bad this El Nino thing is going to get. Rain and wind are one thing, but the sustained, unrelenting downpours and the massive gales we’ve been experiencing have us all hunkering down for a long and treacherous winter season. As outdoors enthusiasts, we also can’t help but wonder how all of this rain and wind is affecting the sports we love. Will we be relegated to the sidelines, cleaning our regulators and tying flies until Spring, or will we be able to enjoy our pastimes even with the tropical weather pattern wreaking havoc?

You Might Want To Watch For Venomous Snakes
With the warmer waters coming farther north, we are seeing all kinds of strange tropical species. Sunfish and hammerheads and many other out of place animals are roaming into areas where they never have been seen before. Case in point, the highly venomous yellow-bellied sea snakes that have been spotted off the coast of California. At least two have been reported, and who knows how many have not? We in the northern states don’t have a lot of venomous animals to content with. Brown recluse spiders come to mind but, as their name says, they are reclusive and hardly ever seen. But if we have to contend with venomous sea snakes, that could be a problem.

Get Ready To See More Coral Bleaching
Coral Bleaching has only recently made a blip on the radar screen of conservation. However, it is quickly becoming a hot button issue for those in the know. The world’s coral reefs are more valuable than we can say, and the systematic bleaching of these life-factories is nothing less than a tragedy for all of us. Unfortunately, with the oceans heating up, El Nino is feared to be devastating to coral. In 1997-98, El Nino caused the worst documented coral bleaching in history. After everything was said and done, 16% of the world’s coral was gone and countries like the Maldives lost up to 90% of their reefs.

SCUBA Diving Could Be Affected
It’s hit or miss, and it depends on where you plan on going for your dive vacation, but some places may be negatively affected by El Nino. Aside from coral bleaching concerns, the warmer water may drive many species of fish and other sea life deeper than sport diver limits, and may pose safety issues for those tempted to get that perfect picture. Some dive destinations are even warning potential visitors away, saying it’s not safe to risk it. Unless you have a once in a lifetime opportunity and can’t see yourself getting another chance to dive somewhere, you might want to wait until next year.

Fish Are Going To Starve
The Pacific Ocean is cold here off the Coast of Oregon and Washington, as any salty sea dog can tell you. It might be inhospitable to swimmers, but that cold water is rish in nutrients and nourishes delicious Dungeness crab, scrumptious salmon, and all kinds of other iconic sea faring critters. The warm waters that El Nino is ushering in has fewer nutrients, that is going to have a tremendous negative affect on those species. There will still be fish to catch, just don’t expect any trophies this year.

Anyone who knows anything about the world’s oceans knows that reefs are more valuable than we can say. Reefs provide so much to us that we take for granted. Protein in the form of fish. Protection from sea surges. Places of wonder and beauty. These are only a few of the valuable things reefs provide. Also, anyone who knows anything about reefs also knows they are in trouble. Rising water temperatures and acidification have taken their tolls, and now we are in a race against these destructive forces to renew and rehabilitate the damaged and diseased reefs. Threats to reef systems have been around forever, but in this day and age it seems more and more pressure is coming to bear on the world’s reefs. Here are some of the more recent…

Bleaching
A relatively new phenomenon, coral bleaching has become the newest in a long line of reef problems. Basically, coral gets its brilliant color from the tiny algae that live symbiotically within the reef. The algae have a very narrow range of temperature it can live in, and if that temperature rises even a little, then the algae dies. The result is a bland and colorless reef. It is, in effect, bleached. Luckily, this bleaching doesn’t mean the death of the reef necessarily. And there are what is known as resilient reefs, which have been known to bounce back from such bleaching. Also, we are fortunate that there are conservatories and other groups who are working tirelessly to rehabilitate bleached coral by utilizing what they have learned about resilient reefs.

Fishing ‘Bulldozers’
Sunken ships and submarines are not coral, but they do provide shelter for fish, amazing tourist destinations, and other benefits. So, in that case, they are called artificial reefs. And artificial reefs are almost as important as coral reefs. But a new fishing practice is presenting a significant threat to the world’s artificial reefs: fishing bulldozers. Actually, they are large and heavy nets that trawlers drag along the ocean floor in an effort to scoop up any and all fish in the area. While it might be a devastatingly effective fishing method, it is proving to be monstrously destructive to shipwrecks. While the practice may be laying waste to the sea life, flora and fauna can regenerate, but once the ships and the artifacts they contain are obliterated, they are gone for good.

High Sediment Levels
While problems with sediment have been ongoing for quite some time, coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef are facing the worst of it. Due to exploding construction along the shoreline (in the form of resorts), sediment issues are at an all-time high.

Crown of Thorns Starfish
As other sea stars are suffering from a strange wasting disease, the Crown of Thorn Starfish is alive and well, feasting on coral reefs in many parts of the world. No one is sure how and why these voracious coral predators are gaining such a foothold, but many believe it is because of an overall imbalance in the ocean.